Tim Walker's Fairyland: Love and Legends

Tim Walker's Fairyland: Love and Legends is open at the National Portrait Gallery in London, running from 9 October 2026 to 7 February 2027. It's a large show, bringing together around 250 portraits of LGBTQ+ activists, artists, performers and cultural figures, all specially created for the exhibition. Walker has spent five years working with queer people and their allies to pull it together, and the title itself does some of the heavy lifting: he's taking 'fairy' — historically a homophobic slur — and reclaiming it as an expression of identity and belonging.

There are two distinct looks to the portraits. A good chunk of them are shot against simple white backgrounds, a direct nod to Richard Avedon, whom Walker assisted back in the nineties. The rest lean on sixteenth-century Tudor portraiture, specifically Hans Holbein the Younger and Nicholas Hilliard, and Walker presents his subjects as an imagined queer aristocracy. He also asked his sitters to bring objects of personal significance to the sessions, so the things they're holding or surrounded by aren't just props — they're chosen by the people in the frames.

It's a curated production, too: Susanna Brown is the curator and Walker's longtime collaborator Shona Heath handled the exhibition design. Walker describes the show as him finally placing himself in the queer realm with confidence, and says he wants visitors to remember that their difference is their power. With 250 portraits to get through, it's a substantial body of work rather than a small selection, and it's on display at the National Portrait Gallery through to 7 February 2027.